52 Weeks: Week 9

Week 9: In the City

This week's photos are a bit of a mish-mash with no real theme. They were all taken on a trip into the city last weekend, so there is a connection between them all, just not really a theme as such.

Last Saturday we headed into the city to look at a bike store in the Tenderloin. In recent months we've gone from having more bikes than family members to just having kids' bikes thanks to multiple bike thefts and Kim's run in with a car. Luckily Kim was not hurt in his recent accident, but his bike sustained more damage than it was worth so bike shopping was the order of the day. While Kim test rode various folding bikes around the block, the girls and I checked out cargo bikes for when we eventually replace our much loved (but stolen) Yuba Mundo. Mathilde is still far too small to be a bike passenger so it will be a while before you see all three kids on the back of a cargo bike of our own, but we thought we'd check out how they fit in the store anyway. Yep, they fit alright. It looks like Ava could even do the pedaling for me from the back of that XtraCycle!

Just down the road from the bike store is an amazingly colorful mural that I see popping up in my Instagram feed from time to time. This has to be one of my favorite walls ever. I just love the color. The girls were pretty impressed by both the colorful mural and the neighboring bear mural and wanted me to take a gazillion photos. I would've loved to have included Mathilde in the photos but the Tenderloin isn't really a neighborhood where I feel comfortable playing with my good camera for too long so we just grabbed a few quick iPhone snaps. 

After checking out bikes we headed to the Westfield on Market Street to grab a bite to eat. The moment we walked in we were drawn to the loud drumming coming from upstairs. A Lunar New Year celebration was taking place in the shopping center and we had arrived just as a lion dance had started. We joined the crowd watching the lion dance before moving on to a craft table where the kids colored badges based on the Lunar Year that they were born in: a pig for Ava, tiger for Lola, and horse for Mathilde. 

  

We then headed to Union Square to see if any new hearts had been installed. The last time we had been to Union Square there were a few empty spots where the hearts are usually displayed so we were hopeful that new ones had been installed. We were in luck: two new hearts! Do you see who that is on the first heart below? That's right; it's Yoda! A Star Wars heart! How fantastic is that? The other new heart features a mesh like material draped over the top. I quite like the mesh, but I've got to say that it's a little overshadowed by its Star Wars friend across the square.

On our way to BART we spotted a dragon hanging in the entry way of Macy's. The girls were in awe of the glittering puppet so we stopped by to have a look. We'll be getting our fill of lion dances and dragons again this weekend when we attend the San Francisco Chinese New Year Parade.

It's been too long since we popped into the city for the afternoon. I'm hoping we can do it more often as there's always so much to see.